“Trump will quickly and irretrievably lose control of his threats and commitments, and he will find himself pressured to pursue unwanted wars to preserve the very image of toughness that will get him into trouble in the first place. His belligerent deterrence will induce global war-fighting, as happened repeatedly during the Cold War. This time, the damage will be much greater and perhaps existential. We are witnessing the rapid demise of the American-led world order that for 70 years averted war among the largest states. The next few years, perhaps just the first year of the Trump presidency, will bring us to a dangerous new precipice in multiple parts of the globe. America doesn’t face the risk of war in just one theater of conflict. Under President Trump, the United States faces that risk in at least four separate theaters.”

Suri goes on to outline what he perceives as risks in several complicated strategic spaces: The Middle East, Europe, North Korea, and the South China Sea. Suri sets his warning in historical context, asking whether past precedent can offer a warning to current policy-makers. Read the full piece here.

Next up in March to the Sea Monday, Wayne Hsieh, coauthor of A Savage War, continues to share correspondence between Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman as it happened approximately 150 years ago. The first post can be found here and the second, here. Follow along for an insider’s view of Sherman’s March to the Sea:

Historians now mostly agree that Sherman’s March to the Sea did not match the brutal and indiscriminate devastation propagated by Lost Cause ideologues, but it was hardly decorous. The following selections from wartime orders showed that despite official orders regarding the protection of civilians and the tight control of foraging, their recurrent reissue showed the degree to which Union commanders struggled to regulate foraging and the destruction of civilian property.

The first letter lays down Sherman’s official guidelines for foraging and destruction of civilian property:

Special Field Orders, No. 120, Headquarters Military Division of the Mississippi, Kingston, GA, November 9, 1864

IV. The will forage liberally on the country during the march. TO this end, each brigade commander will organize a good and sufficient foraging party, under the command of one or more discreet officers, who will gather, near the route traveled, corn or forage of any kind, meat of any kind, vegetables, corn=meal, or whatever is needed by the command . . . Soldiers must not enter the dwellings of the inhabitants, or commit any trespass . . .
V. To army corps commanders alone is intrusted the power to destroy mills, houses, cotton-gins, &c., and for them this general principle is laid down: In districts and neighborhoods where the army is unmolested no destruction of such property should be permitted; but should guerrillas or bushwhackers molest our march, or should the inhabitants burn bridges, obstruct roads, or otherwise manifest local hostility, then army commanders should order and enforce a devastation more or less relentless according to the measures of such hostility.
VI. As for horses, mules, wagons, &c., belonging to the inhabitants, the cavalry and artillery may appropriate freely and without limit, discriminating, however, between the rich, who are usually hostile, and the poor or industrious, usually neutral or friendly. . . . In all foraging, of whatever kind, the parties engaged will refrain from abusive or threatening language, and may, where the officer in command thinks proper, given written certificates of the facts, but no receipts, and they will endeavor to leave with each family a reasonable portion for their maintenance.

The following orders reiterating Sherman’s larger instructions showed the degree to which Union command struggled to control foraging—if the original orders had been followed, after all, there would have been no need to reiterate the same instructions:

IV. It is hoped and believed that both officers and men of this command will keep constantly in mind that we are not warring upon women and children. Foraging parties will take such articles as are needed for the health or subsistence of the men, but no houses will be entered by them, and all officers, guards, or soldiers are ordered shoot on the spot any person caught firing a building, or any other property, without orders.

The following orders from O. O. Howard, commander of the Army of the Tennessee, the parent organization of the 17th Corps above, showed his dis-satisfaction with a lack of compliance to the orders above:

Special Field Orders No. 172, Headquarters Department and Army of the Tennessee, Hillsborough, GA, November 19, 1864

II. Corps commanders will prohibit their soldiers from entering houses, and enforce the order by severe penalties. More care must be taken in the selection of foragers. Many have been drunk and disorderly. Foraging for the different headquarters must be regulated. Division and brigade commanders will be required to be with their commands during the march.

In the following excerpt, one now sees another Army Corps in Howard’s command, the 15th, reiterating demands for compliance with orders on disciplined foraging—a clear indication that such dictates were being regularly violated:

In publishing paragraph II, Special Field Orders, No. 172, from department headquarters, the attention of all officers commanding foraging parties is once again called to the importance of enforcing the very strictest discipline while on such duties. These parties must absolutely be conducted in obedience and in conformity to existing orders; when found guilty of violating the restrictions laid down in that order must be punished by the commanding officer. The fine imposed should not be less than the deduction of one month’s pay. Officers in charge of foraging parties who permit their men to straggle or commit unwarrantable acts must be reported to these headquarters, and their names will be sent forward for summary dismissal from service for incompetence, or failing to enforce discipline, and for disobedience of orders.

Before guided missiles, humans had few ways to attack their enemies remotely, so they tried using animals. The Chinese were enthusiastic practitioners of this art. The firebird was a simple, if imprecise example. This image is from a Chinese military manual from the 1000s, and its accompanying text includes instructions: “Take a peach pit and cut it in half. Hollow out the middle and fill it with mugwort tinder. Then cut two holes and put it back together. Before this, capture from within the enemy’s territory some wild pheasants. Tie the peach pits to their necks, and then prick their tails with a needle and set them free. They will flee back into the grass, at which point the peach pits will let loose their fire.”

Pheasants might have been suitable to attack a foe in the field, but what if the enemy held a city? In this case one could use urban birds, deploying hundreds of them at a time to lay waste to enemy buildings. This image, from the same eleventh-century military manual, depicts fire sparrows, and the accompanying text explains how to prepare them: “Hollow out apricot pits and fill them with mugwort tinder. Then capture from the enemy’s town and warehouses several hundred sparrows. Tie the apricot pits to their legs and then add a bit of fire [to the tinder]. At dusk, when the flocks fly into the city to rest for the night, they will settle in large groups in the houses and buildings, and at this moment the fire will flame up.”

(Source: Wu jing zong yao, juan 11, “huo gong”.)

Fire Ox

If birds proved too subtle, one could also use fire-oxen, such as the one depicted here. In this case, the fire is used less as an incendiary than as a motivator. One fit one’s ox with spears and then affixed straw soaked in oil to his or her tail. After it’s set alight, the ox would charge madly toward the enemy.

As the Chinese perfected gunpowder mixtures, they added bombs to these living weapons, as in this image, where we see a classical fire-ox, motivated to run by the burning reeds, with a bomb on its back. The bomb was timed to explode when the poor beast reached the enemy.

Europeans also used animals to deliver incendiaries. Here is an image of a cat and a bird, each with a sack of burning material attached to them. The idea was to kidnap a domestic cat from the enemy’s city, attach a sack of incendiary material to it, and then shoo it home. The idea was that it would then run and hide in a hay loft or barn, which would then, if things went as planned, catch on fire.

Tonio Andrade is professor of history at Emory University and the author of The Gunpowder Age, as well as Lost Colony: The Untold Story of China’s First Great Victory over the West (Princeton) and How Taiwan Became Chinese.

Ken MacLeish, assistant professor of medicine, health, and society at Vanderbilt University and author of Making War at Fort Hood: Life and Uncertainty in a Military Community, recently did an interview with the New Books Network about his book, which offers an illuminating look at war through the daily lives of the people whose job it is to produce it.

Fort Hood is one of the largest military installations in the world, and many of the 55,000 personnel based there have served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. MacLeish provides intimate portraits of Fort Hood’s soldiers and those closest to them, drawing on numerous in-depth interviews and diverse ethnographic material.

Third Prize in the Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing, Society for Humanistic Anthropology and American Anthropological Association

The late Victor Turner devoted his career to seeking a language that would reopen anthropology to the human subject, and the prize will be given in recognition of an innovative book that furthers this project. Eligible genres include ethnographic monographs, narratives, historical accounts, biographies, memoirs, dramas, or single-authored collections of essays, short stories or poems.

Prizes will be awarded at the AAA November annual meeting. To learn more about this award,click here.

Making War at Fort Hood offers an illuminating look at war through the daily lives of the people whose job it is to produce it. Kenneth MacLeish conducted a year of intensive fieldwork among soldiers and their families at and around the US Army’s Fort Hood in central Texas. He shows how war’s reach extends far beyond the battlefield into military communities where violence is as routine, boring, and normal as it is shocking and traumatic.

Fort Hood is one of the largest military installations in the world, and many of the 55,000 personnel based there have served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. MacLeish provides intimate portraits of Fort Hood’s soldiers and those closest to them, drawing on numerous in-depth interviews and diverse ethnographic material. He explores the exceptional position that soldiers occupy in relation to violence–not only trained to fight and kill, but placed deliberately in harm’s way and offered up to die. The death and destruction of war happen to soldiers on purpose. MacLeish interweaves gripping narrative with critical theory and anthropological analysis to vividly describe this unique condition of vulnerability. Along the way, he sheds new light on the dynamics of military family life, stereotypes of veterans, what it means for civilians to say “thank you” to soldiers, and other questions about the sometimes ordinary, sometimes agonizing labor of making war.

Making War at Fort Hood is the first ethnography to examine the everyday lives of the soldiers, families, and communities who personally bear the burden of America’s most recent wars.

It’s Veteran’s Day! In honor of those who have bravely fought to protect our country, the Press is taking a moment to thank those men and women who have risked their lives for this amazing country and its people. On such an occasion, it only makes sense to share some of our titles with you all that highlight the wars we’ve fought and the democracy we’ve worked so hard to build, neither of which would be possible without people to protect and defend us.

By: David Runciman
In this wide-ranging, original, and compelling book, David Runciman tells the story of modern democracy through the history of moments of crisis, from the First World War to the economic crash of 2008. A global history with a special focus on the United States, The Confidence Trap examines how democracy survived threats ranging from the Great Depression to the Cuban missile crisis, and from Watergate to the collapse of Lehman Brothers. It also looks at the confusion and uncertainty created by unexpected victories, from the defeat of German autocracy in 1918 to the defeat of communism in 1989.

By: Michael D. Gordin
Most Americans believe that the Second World War ended because the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan forced it to surrender. Five Days in August boldly presents a different interpretation: that the military did not clearly understand the atomic bomb’s revolutionary strategic potential, that the Allies were almost as stunned by the surrender as the Japanese were by the attack, and that not only had experts planned and fully anticipated the need for a third bomb, they were skeptical about whether the atomic bomb would work at all. With these ideas, Michael Gordin reorients the historical and contemporary conversation about the A-bomb and World War II.

By: John David Lewis
The goal of war is to defeat the enemy’s will to fight. But how this can be accomplished is a thorny issue. Nothing Less than Victory provocatively shows that aggressive, strategic military offenses can win wars and establish lasting peace, while defensive maneuvers have often led to prolonged carnage, indecision, and stalemate. Taking an ambitious and sweeping look at six major wars, from antiquity to World War II, John David Lewis shows how victorious military commanders have achieved long-term peace by identifying the core of the enemy’s ideological, political, and social support for a war, fiercely striking at this objective, and demanding that the enemy acknowledges its defeat.

By: Dan Reiter
Why do some countries choose to end wars short of total victory while others fight on, sometimes in the face of appalling odds? How Wars End argues that two central factors shape war-termination decision making: information about the balance of power and the resolve of one’s enemy, and fears that the other side’s commitment to abide by a war-ending peace settlement may not be credible. How Wars End concludes with a timely discussion of twentieth-century American foreign policy, framing the Bush Doctrine’s emphasis on preventive war in the context of the theory.

By: Christopher Gelpi, Peter D. Feaver & Jason Reifler
From the Korean War to the current conflict in Iraq, Paying the Human Costs of War examines the ways in which the American public decides whether to support the use of military force. Contrary to the conventional view, the authors demonstrate that the public does not respond reflexively and solely to the number of casualties in a conflict. Instead, the book argues that the public makes reasoned and reasonable cost-benefit calculations for their continued support of a war based on the justifications for it and the likelihood it will succeed, along with the costs that have been suffered in casualties. Of these factors, the book finds that the most important consideration for the public is the expectation of success.

By: Jason K. Dempsey
Conventional wisdom holds that the American military is overwhelmingly conservative and Republican, and extremely political. Our Army paints a more complex picture, demonstrating that while army officers are likely to be more conservative, rank-and-file soldiers hold political views that mirror those of the American public as a whole, and army personnel are less partisan and politically engaged than most civilians. Our Army adds needed nuance to our understanding of a profession that seems increasingly distant from the average American.

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